A break from the Norm

Howdy all... 

Bit of a change today. Instead of trying to catch you up on the goings on in and around the workshop, I thought I would bring you a bit of a STW review. As many will know I'm helping my
Mate build his 2" Burrell agri, last week I dropped off the bits n' bobs I had thrown into the sand blaster and went to see progress. As you may expect I walked out with a box of goodies, which is handy as most of the projects are on hold for various reasons, so I thought I would let you all into the world of kit building.

The box, 

First things first, I took the box home and opened it up, to find a complete kit for a back wheel. The outer rim, rolled and welded, a center hub, a few packets of spokes. A few more packets of bolts n various odds n ends, Name plates, hub centers  that kinda gumf  so having identified the parts n bits, checked its all there I put it all back in the box and went to bed.

The next morning I picked up the box on the way out the door and took it to work, and went about my humble job, once everything was set I cracked out the box and went at it, first was the laborious job of de-burring all the parts in the box, that in itself was a few hrs work, every later cut spoke, was filed up and cleaned, center hub was deburred and the wheel rim had the holes cleaned up. The  i threw the instructions to the wind and started to assemble the wheel. Within a few hours I was looking at a complete wheel, and I have to say I was impressed, 99% of the machining was good, it all fit with no real dramas and the end result was good. I had to tap out a few bolt holes because the countersunk screw bottomed out before tightening up on the spoke but that was the only machining issue that cropped up. 

Soon after I went home, and diss-assembled it all, making sure to mark the spokes! A quick flick through the manual, and it got serious, I broke out the car filler, mixed up a load and slapped it on the putter rim, this was to disguise the fact the rims are rolled and welded rather than cast, let that dry over night and sanded it back to leave a nice radius in the rim edges, 

just for some scale that's the rear rim next to my Folwer plowing engines front wheel!































The next bit i did was to loctite all the outer rivets in place 
around the rim and stick the oiler pipe into the hub, this got all the fiddly stuff out the way and then i could start assembling the spokes 
















As per the instructions i loosely bolted the spokes from the rear hub to the front flange and set it all up, then unbolt the center, cover it in areldite and then stick it all back in, do all the countersinks up tight and bolt the end plate on. I let that all go off and then did the same with the front end, so then i had all the spokes inside the rims, in the right place  then it was the laborious job of removing all the hex head bolts i had temporally bolted the spokes to the rim with, and replace them with the rivet bolts they supplied, 

This took a long time, all the bolts has to be loctited in and done up, 4 per spoke, 8 spokes a side..... i was swearing a cursing by the end,!

the end result was nice , ( this picture shows the welded join before i added a little more filler and sanded the rim edge, so it all looks a little squiffy, this was soon sorted out)

After a final day on the AGA drying all the glues and bits i was actually impressed with the end result, everything generally fit well with no major modifications and its some out looking impressive. not like the kit built things you would expect. so yea ... not a bad little bit of engineering, hopefully there will be some more progress with this soon, so it should all start to look like an engine! .. or at least thats the plan!

Other things on the agenda

Well progress seems to be slow at the moment, lots of work going in but not much coming out, the pug has seen some hard graft for a few days, cylinder drains and pipe work on the agenda, so Iv'e been bashing as much of that as possible, i got a few bits to finish and link up to get the drains sorted. Pipe work needs some final bits too, most of the piping is done, i need to finish the return and feed for the axle pump/ hand pump, and i need to get and pipe up and injector, there is a few minor items too, like pressure gauge and the feed pipe to the whistle valve, but all in good time.

Also in further news next week will see the boiler exam for the Fowler, one of the last stages to get through before the re-tube, so with a little luck that will pass and all is well, just need to give it a last little clean up before the inspectors turn up so busy week ahead again.. 

such is life!

anyways hope ya'll enjoyed this little incite into Burrell building, 

laters